Web Visits and Seasonal Fluctuations

Figured I would produce a different chart then I normally would. Just to show a different view point.

The number of visits coming in this week are some of the highest of the year, but not the highest because a day in March produced the most visitors [so far].

Any way it just doesn't seem like the incoming hits were matching prior trends, so I generated this graph to actually show the high and low trends by month. Yes I know the trend line is flat for the last three years, I'm working on it.

So the best month of the year is in March or sometimes January is a good month. The worst months are at the end of the year in December or mid year around June/July. It just seems odd that if this months hits continue at their present rate that October could be the month with the most visitors this year. Of course I only have a week of data this month, but I looked back over this year and did not find visits per day this high. In fact last month was the highest number of hits in September in the last three years..... There are already a number of older posts that indicate why the visits are flat, so just scroll down the page with the next page link being on the right side.

Data Source; AWSTATS off my server [apposed to Google Analytic data which I also post]. FYI; Google's count would be 3% low because that percentage of visitors do not run Java Script which their counter requires.

SEO Advice; I noticed a few months ago that Google was posting the last revision date of pages as they were displayed in their SEPs. So now regardless of the update I make to a page I rev the text that indicates when the last time the page was updated. In previous up-dates I would only change the date for a major reversion, certainly not for some html change that no one could even see.

Why do Web Stat Counters Differ

So I was looking at the Manufacturers listing section again, just to see how that section was doing. Looks like there are 95 individual pages that make up the manufacturers section. There are 10 pages that make up the listing of companies that start with the letter 'A', as an example.

The graphic shows two examples of counters that might track incoming visitors, both counters represent page views.

The top counter is from Google Adsense and the bottom counts represents page views from Google Analytics. Both counters require JAVA Script to be enabled in the browser.

But why are the counters so different, there both from Google? The Adsense counter seems to be counting at a higher rate than the Analytics counter. Note the scales differ between each counter.
Click the graphic for a larger image.

Pages with the least amount of visitors;
Component Vendors, 'Us'.
IC Vendors, 'Ap'.
Equipment Manufacturers, 'Go'.
IC Manufacturers, 'Gen'.
These are the bottom 4, but it could be these page were only generated last year and may not be as old as some of the other pages.....

Links from an External Page

One of the data points AWSTATS provides is a listing of Links from External Pages.
AWSTATS is the server side counter used by interfacebus.com.
With the start of the new month the listing is small and still workable. Scrolling down the list the column indicating page visits goes blank, while still indicating hits to the site.

That normally means that another site is directly linking to graphic files on my server [site]. The site is using my graphics from my server. The graphic wasn't copied, it's being used directly from my server ~ using up my bandwidth. Not really sure if I like that better than just taking a copy of my picture file.

So I checked a few of the sites using the largest bandwidth [most hits] and visit the other web site. Once I find the graphic file their linking to, I go back to my server change the name of the pic file and up-date my pages so that they to point to the new file name. I save bandwidth and they end up with a broken link. Some times I'll leave the old file name valid but change the pic file to a graphic of my site address :)

Both sites I check were forums, which normally don't allow people to upload graphics. Web sites normally just take the graphics out-right.

The attached graphic is an example forum site that had copied one of my pic files. Some time last year I changed the file name and had a graphic of my site name up-loaded......

Alexa Demographics

Alexa is one of many web sites that collects data on web site visits, but with Alexa you have to run their tool bar. With out the tool bar they don't collect any data.

So they only gather data from a certain group of people, and not from every one who might visits a site. Because of this I've never worried about the over all stats they display because I know it's only from a small segment of the population. However at the same time, many people also think the opposite.

Any way here is a partial data chart from Alexa for interfacebus.com.

The green represent above average visits from a group, while red represents below average visits. So the web site brings in older male visitors that are highly educated while they are at work.

Click on the image for a larger view of the pic.

Start a Blog to Gain Site Visitors

I've been working this Blog for 3 and a half years now, starting in Nov 2005. Pretty much 3/4 web site topics with the rest being engineering topics.

I started a second blog in Oct 2007 to cover page additions to interfacebus.com. In most cases I list what ever new pages are added to the site, but I'm sure I miss a few now and again.

The attached graph shows the combined visits to both blogs. The large spike at the center of the chart shows when the second blog was started [spikes are per day].

Using Google Analytics [which was started mid 2006] shows this Blog referred 3,045 people to interfacebus [46.21% blog traffic]. While the 'What's new Blog' sent over 2,605 referrals [39.53% blog traffic]. And that's with the second blog starting a year later. In fact just looking at this year, the 'What's new blog' referred 812 visits, while this blog sent over another 531 visits.

Seems like a good reason to start a blog

Top Web Site Content

Here is how the site is doing, Page Views and number of pages receiving those page views. Seems like most of the site is receiving less than 1000 page views so far this year.

Maybe it's time to work more on adding to pages already on the site and not so much into adding new pages. At any given time there are always 50 plus pages waiting on a page rank. So it's understandable to have some number of pages with no page views, but these number are to high.

70,000 to 79,000: 1 page
60,000 to 69,000: 0 pages
50,000 to 59,000: 1 page
40,000 to 49,000: 1 page
30,000 to 39,000: 2 pages
20,000 to 29,000: 4 pages
10,000 to 19,000: 18 pages
1,000 to 9,000: 340 pages
100 to 900: 809 pages
1 to 99: 640 pages [estimate]

Many pages in my list receiving below around 10 hits, are 404 pages. Or pages that were visited but don't really exist. They are just misspelled page addresses, so that 640 figure is a bit high.

Last years post on the same topic; Page views.

Twenty of the pages receiving below 10 visits were Transistor Derating Curves, a few are listed below. Another dozen or so just receiving between 10 to 20 visits. Guess that section of pages is never going to do so well.... But listing some of them here provides an external page link, and they were just up-dated.

Low visits;
2N4150 Derating. 2N5581 Derating Curve.
How to derate a 2N6762. 2N6306 Power Rating.
2N4033 Power Data. 2N6300 Power Derating Curve.
2N5002 Derating Guideline. 2N2904A Derating Graph.

Static Generation. No page text
Relay Derating Rules. Not sure what is wrong here
Cable Retracter Arms. New page
Fuse Holder Notes.
Power Supply Notes.

I Need More Visitors

Visitors to interfacebus.com have been flat for years. I add new pages all the time, and of course I up-date and enhance existing pages at an even faster rate [Engineering Page Additions]. What ever I do to the web site, it seems to make no difference.

Of course some of the issues that effect the website are just out of my control. A third of the website is geared toward Computer Buses. Well as time moves on more and more of those PC Buses go obsolete. For example the PCI Express bus replaced both the PCI Bus and the AGP Bus, resulting in 5 pages replacing 8 pages [when pinout tables are counted].

Many new pages added are small in size and it takes time to work them while also doing routine maintenance to the website.

----- RoHS Definition [Added in 2006, no Page Rank, and only viewed 347 times]

Sometimes a page might seem like a good idea, but I never get around to working that particular issue.

----- PON Acronyms [Added in 2007, Page Rank 2, only viewed 263 times]

Maybe I start a page because I generate a new graphic and think it will support another page.

----- Compliant Pin Description [Added in 2008, Page Rank 2, only viewed 230 times]

Adding new pages does not guarantee visitors, as they still have to compete with preexisting pages on the web.

----- Manufacturers of Waveguide Gaskets [Added in 2009, no Page Rank, only viewed 71 times]

New pages also need three months before they receive a page rank from Google, if they ever get one at all. A Page Rank helps the page show up on page one of the search results.

Of course I have no control how my pages show up in the search results. The rise and fall based on an algorithm running on some computer. This page lost 50% of its visits in mid 2008 and stayed there.

----- Wire Insulation Color Codes [Added pre 2006, Page Rank 2]

FYI

The attached graphic is from Google Trends showing the Internet search history for the term AGP. Click the graphic for a larger image. The AGP interface [Accelerated Graphics Port] is the obsolete PC motherboard video bus which was replaced by the PCI Express [PCIe] bus.

Number of Daily Visits

Looks like there is an increase in Daily Visits to the site. January had on average about 8,000 total visits per day, with a few days having around 8,300 visits [as reported by AWSTATS].

This week the visits have grown to around 8,500 visits a-day, or up about 500 per day.

There is no way to tell why the site sees an increase, but it could be due to what ever work was added to the site back in December. Of course there is also no way to tell how long the increase will last.

The important points in the graphic are Number of Visits and Pages. Web Site; PC Bus Pinouts.

Hits for the 7th are no yet in the report. On average from Jan the highest hits come in on Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday is a close third after Tuesday. Visits start to fall off on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Slowing rebounding on Sunday, I assume from over-seas.

Total Unique Visits

I haven't posted this chart in a while. The chart to the left contains the same data for Unique Visitors as the last posting. The difference here is that the data goes back to 2001, and the chart does not contain the other traffic information. Click the chart for a larger view.

It may appear that there are large fluctuations in the traffic over the last few years, but the graph is misleading. The 'Interface Bus' site receives around 8,000 unique visits a day so a short month or a holiday will reduce those peaks by several thousand hits. A holiday could reduce the number of hits from 8,000 to 2,000, while a short month could lower the graph by 16,000 visits. Most of fluctuations are down 10 to 15,000.

In 2006 the server went down for a few days and the site lost more than 20,000 visitors. In 2005 the counter was changed to one that appeared more strict in counting. But a few months later the graph still showed more visitors regardless.

So as far as I'm concerned unique visitors to the web site have been flat from 2006 on. Stable is fine, but I would rather see some increase in site visits. I still work the site, but it seems the best I can do is keep things stable.

One common reason for a lack of any increase is interface bus obsolescence. Pages written years ago see less and less visitors as the topic moves to obsolescence. For Example the page on the PCI interface bus has fallen from 1,000 hits a week in mid 2006 to about 500 hits last week. The page on the AGP bus has seen the same reduction over the same time period. Because of PCIe both those computer interfaces were already on their way out by 2006.

The chart covers January 2001 to January 2009. I do have data back to 1999, but it would not help the graph and just make the graphic larger than needed.

Googlebot Crawl Stats

Here is the latest graph on Googlebot crawl stats, or how often the Googlebot spider checks interfacebus.com. For reference, the previous Googlebot crawl rate.

The previous 90 days ending in October showed an average of 452 pages spidered each day, while this chart shows 523 pages a day.

The amount of data down-loaded has increased to over 6,405k bytes [6Meg], but the time spent downloading the information has decreased by 100mS. So the spider is reading more data faster, which is good.
July crawl rate.
Sep 07 crawl rate.
Jan to July o7 crawl rate.

Page Rank & Listing of Manufacturers

One of the sections of the site is a listing of Manufacturers in alphabetic order, instead of by topic. The alphabetic listing of Manufacturers spans 94 pages. The section received 1,255 pageviews in the last 30 days, and 8,205 page views this year. The alphabetic index page, which also happens to be letter 'A' receives most of the hits, and the rest are spread over the alphabet.

The section help people find companies when they might not be sure of the name, and it indicates who may have purchased the company if it changed hands. It's a lot of work keeping all the links active and valid, but it does seem to serve a purpose.

Any way, several months ago I broke up many of the pages to make them smaller, reducing the number of links per page. The new pages started with a zero page rank, which is normal, but they still have not recovered. Worse still, I checked one page today and the content didn't even show up during a search ~ meaning the page was not even indexed by Google.

Pages with a zero page rank:
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Amd'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Asq'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Be'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Bl'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Br'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Cm'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Con'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Cp'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Dem'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ec'. html code updated,links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'El'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Em'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Fm'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'G'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Gen'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Gl'. links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Go'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Hb'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Hj'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Il'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'In'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Int'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Intel'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Jd'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ke'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ki'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'L'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Mo'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Nik'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Oo'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'P'. html code updated, links checked ~ One bad link..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Po'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ram'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ren'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Sen'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Sig'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Sk'. html code updated, links checked ~ One bad link..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Sp'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Tb'. html code updated, links checked ~ One bad link..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Th'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Us'.
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'V'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Ve'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Vi'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Vm'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Wi'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..
Engineering Manufacturers starting with 'Z'. html code updated, links checked ~ no issues..

Wow, 47 pages with a Google page Rank issue ~ that's not good. But what is the problem with the pages?

I did notice that the entire section declares xhtml 'strict' coding, so I updated a few to 'transitional' coding today. The pages will validate declaring 'transitional' coding, but that can't be the issue or they would all have a zero page rank.

Any non '.com' web site link has a "rel = nofollow" in the link so even if the link were bad Goggle would ignore it. The 'rel=no follow' must be on 20% of the links, making them save regardless.

I'm running Xenu tonight to check the site for bad links, but that program will not indicate if some other site has taken over an address ~ so I'll have to hand check each link to insure the page opens to the site listed. Xenu reports 8 bad links (0.13%), with 5937 good url's.

I hand checked a few pages, see the text above, but I don't see any issues. I don't mind so much about losing the page rank, but I would like to have the data searchable. I could be missing a number of visitors because the page are in Google's supplemental listing.

Web Page Strength & Importance

I came across backlinkwatch.com while searching the web. This site gives you all the links pointing to your site [back links]. Of course Google will do that as well, but this site provides two other pieces of data. First, the site indicates if the incoming link has an attached 'rel=nofollow' tag to the link, indicating that no page rank is passed with the link. Second the site shows the total number out going links on the page that contains your link. The more links on a page means that a smaller percentage of Page Rank [PR] is passed in each outbound link. The site found 5,158 backlinks for interfacebus.com. From the Back-link report I found tagurls.com which ... hmm, not really sure what it's telling me. But I found seomoz.org which gives an indication of page strength [SEO site]. interfacebus has a page strength of 6/10 per their report. Than cloudalicio.us was found which shows the number of tags [links?] occur over time on del.icio.us. Also checked out Technorati, guess they track blog activity.

Then I found this one http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/reqs_bestpractices/laws_regs/copyright.shtml.

Hmm, while interfacebus.com was rated 6 of 10.

Declining Page Views Trend

I posted a partial graph of this data back in November of last year, AWSTATS. That post provides the definition for the terms used, but I'll provide them again here..

Unique Visitor:
A unique visitor is a host that has made at least 1 hit on 1 page of your web site during the current period shown by the report. If this host make several visits during this period, it is counted only once. The period shown by default is the current month.
Visits:
Number of visits made by all visitors.
Think "session" here, say a unique IP accesses a page, and then requests three others without an hour between any of the requests, all of the "pages" are included in the visit, therefore you should expect multiple pages per visit and multiple visits per unique visitor.
Pages:
The number of "pages" logged.

This new chart shows an alarming trend, a major reduction in page views. However another counter shows no real change. New visits seem to be stable, as do returning visits. The server bandwidth appears to be dropping, as the trend line moves away the 'unique visits' line.

Site Hits are down

Hits to www.interfacebus.com are down again this month. That's four months in a row. In most cases it's just droping 3000 a month, so it's really just down by a few hours to a day out of the month.

The issue is that it's down 4 months in a row.

New Wireless Card

Now that my Alienware computer is my secondary system, I added a Wireless card to it to allow the computer access to the network.

I added a PCI Adapter; Wireless G card [with SRX]. SRX is the Speed/Range eXpansion providing upto 8x faster, and 3x farther coverage. Sounds about right, as the computer sees 5 other wireless networks outside my house ~ which it did not see before.

Of course with all other Linksys products I have it does not work out of the box. I loaded the CD/Software as per instruction, then the hardware after a power down/up. But the CD never auto ran at start-up, and it will not let me back in with out reloading the driver again....

The PCI expansion card is the Linksys WMP54GX which is compatible with Wireless-B 802-11b, and Wireless-G 802.11-G; 2.4GHz

Of course this is some of the equipment used to generate the interfacebus.com web site. interfacebus is a trade mark of interfacebus.com